Royal Challengers Bangalore had a perfect start to the IPL 2023 as it defeated the five times champion Mumbai Indians in their first match by 8 wickets which was played yesterday at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Both the sides played some wonderful cricket but it was RCB’s dominant batting which snatched victory from Rohit Sharma-led side and it was pretty clearly visible that the Mumbai franchise was badly missing the services of its star pacer Jasprit Bumrah who has been ruled out of the IPL 2023 because of the back injury.
The toss was won by RCB and it chose to bowl first after winning the toss. MI had a bad start as it lost its top four batters – Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Cameron Green and Suryakumar Yadav at the score of 48/4 in 8.5 overs but it was the valiant innings of Tilak Varma (84 runs not out, 46 balls, 9 fours & 4 sixes) because of which MI was able to put up a good target of 171/7 in its stipulated 20 overs. Nehal Wadhera and Arshad Khan also played useful knocks of 21 runs and 15 runs not out, respectively.
The target of 172 was a competitive one but because of incredible batting performances of RCB openers – Virat Kohli (82 runs not out, 49 balls, 6 fours & 5 sixes) and skipper Faf du Plessis (73 runs, 43 balls, 5 fours & 6 sixes), the Bangalore franchise registered a comfortable win with 8 wickets in hand and with 3.4 overs still remaining in its innings.
RCB can easily be called one of the strongest teams of the IPL in almost all the seasons but it gets criticized a lot for not being able to win even a single title despite playing the tournament since its inaugural edition of 2008. After the match, the former skipper of RCB gave a perfect answer to those who troll the franchise by telling them an interesting fact about the Bangalore team.
Virat Kohli said that he wanted to say this for a while, after the two most successful teams of the IPL – Mumbai Indians (5 titles), Chennai Super Kings (4 titles), it is RCB which comes at the third number in terms of playing the play-offs maximum times. RCB has played in play-offs 8 times and Virat Kohli adds that they will take one game at one time and as they are balanced side, they will try their best to execute their plans in a right manner just like they did against MI.
Talking about their return to Bangalore in the IPL 2023, Virat Kohli calls it phenomenal and says that the support from the completely packed crowd made a huge difference for them as it helped them in starting their journey in the best possible manner.
RCB will play its next match against Kolkata Knight Riders on 6 April 2023 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata.